Inflatable garment therapy consists of a shaped inflatable garment, such as a garment adapted for wearing on the foot or the lower part of a patient's leg, that is coupled to a pump that cycles air under pressure into the garment to fill sequentially cells within the inflatable garment to push venous blood from the patient's extremity toward the patient's heart. In a different clinical condition, the inflatable garment can rapidly expand to mimic muscle contraction and promote peripheral circulation at extremities. In one form of inflatable garment therapy, the inflatable garment is constructed with multiple inflatable cells that can be inflated from the cell most distant from the heart in a sequential pattern to the cell closest to the heart. Then, the pressure is released and the cells are subsequently inflated through another cycle. This inflatable garment therapy is utilized primarily by patients at home, usually with the assistance of a visiting nurse that visits the patient periodically, but at the direction and supervision of a doctor.
The health care provider rarely knows how effective the inflatable garment therapy is for the patient. Although the visiting nurse will stop at the patient's home to check on the patient periodically, perhaps once every two weeks, and the health care provider will likely see the patient less frequently than the visiting nurse, this therapy should be conducted multiple times each day. Accordingly, the health care provider typically has little or no feedback as to whether the therapy is actually being done, or if the therapy is producing positive results. Further, the patient has no feedback as to the effectiveness of the therapy. Particularly since positive feedback will normally stimulate and encourage the continued use of the therapy, providing the patient with ongoing results of the therapy has a synergistic effect on the effectiveness of the therapy.
Inflatable garment therapy is not the only kind of in-home therapy that would have benefits associated with on-going monitoring. For example, negative pressure bandages are applied to wounds to extract exudates from the wound through the operation of a pump providing a negative pressure on the bandage sealed over the patient's wound site. The volume of the exudates, as well as the quality of the exudates, can provide a health care provider important information as to the effectiveness of the operation of the negative pressure bandage and as to the status of the patient's wound. Monitoring of any in-home therapy that is not being conducted at the immediate and constant supervision of a health care professional can be enhanced through monitoring. Even monitoring the use of medication by a patient can enhance the effectiveness of the medication for the patient. In bone growth stimulation therapy, such as electromagnetic or electrical devices that are applied to spinal fusion surgical sites to stimulate bone fusion, monitoring the use of the therapy device can provide the patient and the medical professionals responsible for the patient's care with important information as to how and when the electromagnetic fields are being applied.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,231,263, granted to Soo Bong Choi on Jun. 12, 2007, a control system for utilizing an insulin pump is disclosed. The Choi system operates to provide security and control over the operation of an insulin pump. Before the pump can be utilized, the person logging in to the system provides an appropriate identification. The blood sugar level for the patient is ascertained and the amount of insulin to be injected is adjusted when the person logged in is the patient's health care provider. A Bluetooth module is utilized to make the communication between the insulin pump module and the internet.
A remote control for a medical apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,425, issued on Jul. 27, 2004, to J. Christopher Flaherty, et al, wherein the medical treatment apparatus has a local processor having a communications unit associated with it. The hand remote control includes a remote processor and an associated remote communication component that can communicate with the local processor in a wireless manner. Accordingly, the medical device can be operated with the operation of the remote control device without requiring the patient to manually access the medial apparatus.
In U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0249976, published on Oct. 25, 2007, a control apparatus for an inflatable garment therapy device is disclosed wherein the pump apparatus is self-contained within therapy device. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0049853, published on Mar. 1, 2007, discloses the inflatable garment therapy device used to improve blood circulation in patient's extremities. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,852,089, issued on Feb. 8, 2005, to Richard J. Kloecker, et al, discloses an inflatable garment therapy device for a patient's arms. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,736,786, granted to Paul Shabty on May 18, 2004, a counter-pulsation device is disclosed in which the operation of the inflatable cuff is coupled to a microprocessor to take the EKG of the patient so that the cuff inflation can be timed with the patient's EKG.
It would be desirable to provide a system for monitoring the operation and the effectiveness of therapy conducted by the patient in his home. It would also be desirable to provide feedback to the patient and to the health care provider as to the effectiveness and as to the utilization of the therapy.